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Why Johnny Can’t Preach

Why Johnny Can’t Preach
is a book written by David Gordon stirred with a concern for the decline in preaching today. The goal of the book is directed toward this. As he says, “… my thesis: that many ordained people simply can’t preach.” As such he does offer some good critique and suggestions for today’s ministers and even aspiring preachers and seminarians.

In the first chapter titled “Johnny Can’t Preach”, Gordon begins by saying “Part of me wishes to avoid proving the sordid truth: that preaching today is ordinarily poor.” He recounts the numerous experiences that he and his wife have had where they listened to sermons and wondered what the sermon was about at the end of it. He calls such sermons “religiously useless” because his family would be unable to have an intelligent conversation about the sermon. Because of a lack of good preachers, the churches have settled for…